Eye of the Storm

Sue Bird doesn't like to wait. It's not that she's impatient; the Seattle Storm's new point guard simply has her own idea of fast. She runs the basketball court like a cheetah, sprinting up and down more quickly than any teammate or opponent, perpetually ready for the ball. With friends, bopping around town, she's always leading the pack, perennially first in line. Bird doesn't stop unless she has to—not for "Don't Walk" signs, not for boys, not for anything.

Bird's new teammates learned this firsthand last week, during an event the Storm bills as its "Player Blitz." The women were dispatched to various spots downtown and instructed to interact with fans along the way. Bird smiled and signed autographs for little kids. She chatted with moms and dads. Then, as she headed from Westlake Center to a rally in Westlake Park, she grabbed teammate Semeka Randall and crossed Pike Street in the middle of oncoming traffic, ignoring a red light and a police officer telling them to stop.

"I could write you up for jaywalking, you know," the cop said sternly, only half-joking.

"Whatever," muttered Bird, after tossing him her best Bette Davis eyes. "I mean, it's not like the cars were gonna hit us."

This is Seattle's newest kid on the block—fun, flip, and, true to her Long Island, N.Y., upbringing, never afraid to jaywalk. After leading the University of Connecticut women's basketball team to an undefeated season and a national championship earlier this year, Bird was tabbed by the Storm in April as the top pick in the WNBA draft. Now, three games into her professional career, expectations are high. On the court, the Storm's general manager and coach, Lin Dunn, hopes that Bird will help the team improve on its league-worst record last year and lead the franchise—in its third season—to its first playoff berth. Off the court, Storm executives hope that Bird can help attract fans to the league's least popular team and have rushed to restructure their entire marketing strategy around her ebullient personality and contagious smile.

Even the WNBA is angling for a piece of Bird; after years of declining revenue and TV ratings, execs at league headquarters in New York are banking on her success at the college level and her bedazzling looks by incorporating her into a nationwide TV advertising campaign that begins this week. With all of this attention, the town's newest hoopster is poised for stardom, both here and across the nation. But unless she succeeds on the court, no amount of recognition may be enough to keep women's basketball afloat.

"It's a tough situation, being thrust under the microscope, dealing with all of the pressures she'll have to face," says Wally Walker, president and CEO of The Basketball Club of Seattle, which owns both the Sonics and the Storm. "She's an amazing young woman, and if anyone can succeed under these circumstances, it's Sue." A Star is Born

Born with a surname that invokes Larry Legend, basketball was pretty much a foregone conclusion for Suzanne Brigit Bird. Like most kids in the suburban town of Syosset, N.Y., she dabbled with soccer, but as a 5-year-old she became a local celebrity entertaining crowds with circus shots during halftime of her older sister's basketball games. After winning state and national championships at Christ the King High School in Queens, she went on to play for the University of Connecticut, where she led the Lady Huskies to two national championships in three years, the last of which capped a 39-0 season in March.

Bird has been rewarded mightily. In addition to winning the prestigious Naismith Player of the Year award for 2002, she notched dozens of other accolades, including the Honda Award for Women's Basketball and her third Conseco/Nancy Lieberman-Cline National Point Guard of the Year. And when Seattle made her the top pick in the WNBA draft on April 19, she was crowned the best prospect in the country.

For Bird, the distinction was "something you dream about your whole life." For the Storm, it was an exciting moment as well—after selecting center Lauren Jackson with the first pick in the 2001 draft, the team now had two No. 1 picks in its starting five. Almost immediately after Bird picked up her No. 10 jersey at Madison Square Garden in New York, team officials back in Seattle began revamping their marketing plans to focus on her. While Jackson had been a difficult sell because of her Australian heritage, they saw the All-American Bird as a slam dunk for improving on the team's league-worst average of fewer than 6,000 fans per game.

"When you consider her success at the college level and the attention she received there, we drafted a great player who already had incredible marketability," says Dunn. "We'd be foolish not to try and take advantage of that."

Already, Bird has become one of the most recognizable people in King County. The team has plastered local papers with her face, scheduled her for more interviews and community appearances than Mayor Greg Nickels, and even minted bobbleheads in her likeness (they'll be given out at the July 20 game). In late April, Bird threw out the first pitch at a Mariners game. Then, of course, was the Player Blitz.